


Peace

by Kharon



Series: Red [11]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Future Fic, Gen, Next Generation, Uchiha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13920891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharon/pseuds/Kharon
Summary: Akashi awakes to the sound of waterdrops falling gently from one leave to the other. It's a comforting sound, soft and melodious. One drop, then another, then another…The air smells of rain and flowers in bloom.





	Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Friendly reminder that this is EWE/ignores chapter 700 of the manga.

Akashi awakes to the sound of waterdrops falling gently from one leave to the other. It's a comforting sound, soft and melodious. One drop, then another, then another…

The air smells of rain and flowers in bloom.

For a while he just lies there on the tatami, eyes closed, and breathes. He remembers his dreams, or some of them at least. There were many people, many faces most of which he can't recall, songs of his childhood, the white smoke of the dead and a scene of his father and mother in traditional Suna garb dancing to the beat of drums that remains crystal clear in his mind.

He opens his eyes, staring at the wooden ceiling above his bed in fascination. The texture of it is unlike any he has ever seen, a light brown mottled with dark red spots.

"So you're finally up," a man remarks from the other side of the room.

His voice is unfamiliar, but Akashi remembers the man with unruly black hair and Karin's eyes.

"We weren't sure…" he trails off, leaving the sentence unfinished, and raises from his place at the wall to cross the room, sitting down beside the bed, "Uchiha Masamune."

"Sa-" he automatically opens his mouth to respond and stops.

 _Sabaku no Akashi_. The man who abandoned his home and sister, only to come back twenty years later to try and destroy both. _Sasori_.

"Did I kill her?", he hears himself ask, "Is she dead?"

Masamune looks out of the window, not meeting his eyes. His hands are busy with a small throwing knife, turning the metal over and over again, fingers running along it's sharp edge as if he wants to see if he'll cut himself eventually.

"You killed each other," he says, crimson eyes catching his gaze, "You fought on the wall of Sunagakure and both perished in the end, you crushed by sand and she by a giant stone dragon. That's what everyone saw; your second-in-command, your cousin, her team, the guards. _Sasori of the Sand_ and the kazekage killed each other. The news has traveled already."

For a moment he thinks back and wonders, lifts his hands to study them, first the insides and then the outsides, throws off the thin blanket that covers his body to look at his bare legs beneath the yukata. _There aren't even scars_.

"You," he says, his tone incredulous, "You made them believe…"

Masamune shakes his head sharply.

"No. They saw something and they _wanted_ to believe it. I gave them what they expected, what they had prepared themselves to see. _They_ made it reality."

"The Sharingan," he whispers, awed and revolted at the same time.

He knows of its abilities of course, was told by his mother about the wonders those eyes of the Uchiha can do, the horrors they bring and the worlds they can create.

"No," Masamune says again, and Akashi turns his head to look at him. He expects him to elaborate, but instead the young man gets up and puts away the throwing knife into the pocket of his vest.

He walks over to the door, but instead of sliding it open he faces Akashi again, a sad smile on his lips.

His eyes, a crimson just a shade dark than his grandmother's, are already the right color, and he watches in awe as first one, then two, then three _tomoe_ appear in his eyes, swirling lazily, before his eyes suddenly turn pitch black, becoming dark voids of nothing. It's an unsettling view, but then, without warning, the man has vanished. He doesn't even know how.

A snap of fingers startles him, and Akashi blinks once, only to see Masamune still sitting beside him, effortlessly spinning the throwing knife on one finger.

"It isn't the eyes that work the illusion, but the mind," he says, getting up again – or not, because the first time most likely wasn't real, "You _think_ that I have them, and so you assume that I must be using them."

"Wait," Akashi grabs the other's arm before he can move away.

Masamune just looks at him, his head tilted a little in question, body frozen in an awkward balance between sitting and standing.

"You didn't answer my question," he forces himself to say, knowing that this maybe will be his only chance to learn the truth.

The Uchiha turns his arm to mirror the grip Akashi has on his forearm, and abruptly pulls him up and to his feet. It's a movement his muscles aren't used to anymore. Akashi almost stumbles. He feels heavy, slow, _old_.

They stand in front of each other, face to face.

"I won't," Masamune tells him resolutely, " _Sabaku no Akaya_ is dead. It doesn't matter who killed her, you can't undo what was done. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was Akane. You'll never know."

Akashi feels… he yanks the younger man forward by his arm and brings his other around to strike, to grab, to hurl Masamune away again, but the Uchiha is faster, turns, and they both trip towards the door in a knot of limbs.

 _It hurts_. Akaya is dead. He should be dead, too, but isn't.

For the first time in decades he forgets that he is a ninja, a trained killer able to mold chakra with only his will, a man who can kill with a fist, a blade, a burst of lightning as easily as he breathes. Instead he brawls like a civilian, with fury in his heart and tears in his eyes.

Masamune tries to dance away from him, face grim, but there isn't enough space in the room for it to work. He takes a nasty blow to his ribs, tumbles, dodges Akashi's next strikes and jumps up on the windowsill, the older man fast on his heels.

They spill out onto the wooden deck in front of the house.

The view of the jungle makes Akashi pause involuntarily.

He is a child of the desert, of sand and earth and stone – of course he knows that that's far from all the world has to offer, has seen rivers, swamps, mountains, beaches, and the ancient forests of the Land of Fire even, but none of that has prepared him for the multitude of vivid green trees and plants in front of him, the heavy air, the overwhelming smell or the glimpses of unknown animals he gets in-between the plants of the forest.

Transfixed he stares, stares and forgets his anger, until suddenly hands grab his sash and the collar of his yukata. Before Akashi can make a sound of protest, Masamune has hurled him off the small platform in front of the house and into the pool a good 15 feet below.

There is water all around him a second later. He inhales some of it with his rather high-pitched scream.

 _Its' not your enemy, it can't hurt you_ , he reminds himself when he kicks to the surface of the tiny lake. Still, seeing only water around him disturbs him more than a little, and Akashi instinctively reaches for his chakra to pull himself up once he has reached the pool's surface, gasping for air.

He sits down on the water and pulls his arms out of the soaked yukata before retying the sash around his hips.

A ripple goes through the pond when Masamune lands beside him.

"She is, _was_ , my sister," Akashi whispers while studying his reflection in the water. There is no scorpion on his skin anymore, white-red stubble covers his chin and from what he can see the hair on the sides and back of his head has turned silvery-white. He feels broken. He _looks_ broken to his own eyes.

"She was your sister," the other man agrees solemnly, "There will be no life where you two are far from each other… you will meet her in your next life, and if forgiveness is needed you will atone then and she _will_ forgive you."

The way he says it, so utterly convinced of his own words, brings an unexpected grin to Akashi's lips – it feels good, a little more like himself.

"How can you be so sure?" he asks.

Masamune look up, into the sunlight that filters through the canopy of the trees.

"My father is dead. He died before I was born, as did his father before him," he says and Akashi watches as his handsome face twists in sadness and then relaxes again, "But whatever happened, we are still _family_. One day we'll meet again. I'll have a lot to tell him then."

Akashi doesn't know what to answer, and only hums in agreement. There are so many things he wants to tell Akaya, so many things he didn't say while he still could.

Noise from the surrounding forest draws both their attention towards the jungle on the far side of the wooden hut by the cliff. Something is crashing through the underbrush in wild abandon, and it's coming closer fast.

Masamune's nonexistent reaction tells him all he needs to know.

Akane charges into the clearing with her red hair flying, eyes wild. She must have heard his scream when her cousin threw him off the deck.

She stops dead in her tracks when she sees him sitting in the middle of the pool.

_"Akashi."_

" _Lil Red_ ," Akashi replies easily, waggling an eyebrow at her.

He smiles when she blushes.

**Author's Note:**

> Masamune is the son of the son of Asuma and Kurenai (Yuuhi Koujin) and Uchiha Sakae. I like the tragic family history (and since the gender of the baby wasn't official until chapter 700 I could make it a boy). 
> 
> Also a few hints of Buddhism here and there. 
> 
> And, seriously, I had so much fun with naming everyone. If anyone wants to know anything about that feel free to ask. The only characters with names that for one reason or another never got mentioned were Lady Nara (Hanako), and Ryoma's sisters (Takeko and Yuko).
> 
> Thanks again for sticking with Akashi.


End file.
